1. Field of the Invention
Exemplary embodiments of the present invention relate to a liquid crystal display and a driving method thereof.
2. Description of the Related Art
A liquid crystal display (LCD) is one of the most widely used flat panel displays. The LCD typically includes two display panels having electric field generating electrodes, such as pixel electrodes and a common electrode, and a liquid crystal layer interposed between the two display panels. Voltages are applied to the electric field generating electrodes to generate an electric field in the liquid crystal layer. Due to the generated electric field, liquid crystal molecules of the liquid crystal layer are aligned and polarization of incident light is controlled, thereby displaying images.
The LCD may also include switching elements connected to the respective pixel electrodes, and a plurality of signal lines, such as gate lines and data lines, for controlling the switching elements and applying voltages to the pixel electrodes.
The liquid crystal display receives an input image signal from an external graphics controller. The input image signal contains luminance information of each pixel PX, and the luminance has grays of a given quantity. Each pixel receives a data voltage corresponding to the desired luminance information. The data voltage appears as a pixel voltage according to a difference between a reference voltage, such as a common voltage, and each pixel displays luminance representing a gray of the image signal according to the pixel voltage. Here, to prevent image deterioration due to a lengthy application of a unidirectional electric field, etc., polarity of the data voltages with respect to the reference voltage may be reversed every frame, every row, or every pixel. Also, in order to prevent stains such as vertical lines in the display screen, different polarity pixel voltages may be applied to neighboring pixels.
When the polarities of neighboring data lines are different so that different polarity pixel voltages may be applied to neighboring pixels, a large voltage difference may exist between the data voltage applied to one pixel and the voltage applied to the data line connected to the neighboring pixel, thereby generating light leakage near the pixel. Particularly, the light leakage further increases as the driving voltage increases.
The above information disclosed in this Background section is only for enhancement of understanding of the background of the invention and therefore it may contain information that does not form the prior art that is already known in this country to a person of ordinary skill in the art.